Tag: gifted learners

Some people can accept quirky, can accept differing preferences, but there’s one thing that flummoxes most people: If it’s easy for them, it should be easy for you. They have a very hard time understanding why you’re struggling.

When we connect with people, even through their biographies, they can inspire and challenge us. When we read about others with similar interests who go on to do great things, that makes us more willing to try hard things as well.

Sometimes, perfectionism looks like someone spending hours and hours laboring over draft after draft, making sure everything is just exactly so, but for some, especially those who deal with executive function difficulties, it may look exactly the opposite.

Every once in a while, though, a student came along who was so disenchanted by the educational system, so convinced that it was irrelevant, that he did everything possible to declare his independence.
By the time they got to me, at age 15, it was almost too late.
What can we do in the early years to help kids stay engaged and motivated so they don’t reject the system and end up failing out of school?

Unfortunately, for many of our gifted kids, much of their lives are spent feeling different, other. They tend to be hyper-aware of how they don’t fit in but, unless we help them find it, don’t realize there are others out there, like them, struggling with similar things but also with similar interests and strengths.

The early years of parenting gifted kids can be tough. You’re probably sleep-deprived, frazzled, questioning your parenting skills, asynchrony is in full force, and all around you, people are telling you to “enjoy every moment” and to “let them be little”. Meanwhile, you’re wondering what in the world you’re going to do with a 4 year old who reads a math dictionary for fun while his friends are playing pirates and house.